Chewbakka
join:2004-12-19
| [OT] Ever get the feeling that cisco routers lack horsepower?
Hi,
Do you ever get the feeling that the branch series of cisco routers lack horsepower?
The other day i was going to buy the HWIC-2FE card for my 1841. To my suprise, that card isn't supported untill you get to the 3841 And even there only two of them can be installed =/
I thought that all routers that supported Hwics could use them, all of them...
Another question. On all of the office/branch routers, except for the 3841, the HWIC bus is 400Mbit. That means a maximum of 2x100 Mbit ports (full duplex). Yet there is the switchport module with 4x100 Mbit, which makes no sense to me.
If you compare the amount of computing power you'll get for the price of an 1841, ~$1,150 (estimate), it's a lot more... |
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rhard49
join:2001-04-12
Merrick, NY | Re: [OT] Ever get the feeling that cisco routers lack horsepower
Yeah I was just quoting a clients small office and I had to include a juniper ssg5 looking at its through-put, features, and price. |
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luminaire
Premium
join:2005-03-22
Oakville, ON
clubs:
| reply to Chewbakka
I find what they lack in horsepower they make up in torque... Seriously, what kind of answers are you expecting :P? The branch routers are really meant for branch offices as an edge device, and I find they do that job pretty well. If you're looking at doing a whole lot of 100mbps IP routing then maybe you should be considering a low end 100mbps l3 switch like a 3550. We use an 1841 as our edge device at the office, and with one FE interface it can route about 60 or so mbps. I haven't checked it in a while so this is all from memory, but that's a pretty big internet connection for most organizations. For all other internal routing we have a 3560 that pushes packets around internally. When looking at these boxes you really do have to consider "what is the right tool for this job."
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Luminaire
My Blog |
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tubbynet
Just a green in a sea of blue and red
Premium
join:2008-01-16
Mesa, AZ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
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| I tend to agree with luminaire  . You really have to look at what you are trying to do with the end device. Obviously if you are running crypto, vlan routing, heavy lan switching, and routing the internet connection, you will obviously note a lot of cpu cycles being burned.
this is why companies often have a separate firewall, core switch, distribution switches, and router. cisco designs the equipment to be specialized at what it does.
q. |
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mr_dirt
join:2006-02-14
Denver, CO
edit:
May 18th, @11:23PM
| reply to Chewbakka
said by Chewbakka :Hi, Another question. On all of the office/branch routers, except for the 3841, the HWIC bus is 400Mbit. That means a maximum of 2x100 Mbit ports (full duplex). Yet there is the switchport module with 4x100 Mbit, which makes no sense to me. If you compare the amount of computing power you'll get for the price of an 1841, ~$1,150 (estimate), it's a lot more... Where in the Cisco price list did you find mention of a router called the 3841?
What did you plan to do with a 2FE WIC that you couldn't do with the 4-port switch WIC? [Incidentally, the 4-port *switch* WIC is just that: a card that's a switch first, and a (very flexible) router interface second]. While the WIC might have 4*100 FE (which amounts to 800 mb/s, if all four ports are running wide-open), I would be surprised to get throughput numbers that can own up to this performance level on a 3800 if the router is doing anything more than routing.
There might be a lot of options out there where you can get a lot more MIPS in a box for less money, but few network appliances will give you the breadth of capability. As far as routers go, none equal the routing-specific ability of an IOS box, especially with regard to refresh cycle lifetime. |
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